


love might be the wrong word

by arizayna



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Infidelity, M/M, as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 05:39:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4594905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arizayna/pseuds/arizayna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>let's admit, without apology, what we do to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love might be the wrong word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andidmarryyouharry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andidmarryyouharry/gifts).



> i'm not sure what this is, but i haven't written in months so i suppose it serves as some form of self-retribution.  
> for kate, again.

_\--_

No matter what they say later - there always comes a point in the night where it looks like this. 

Niall’s hands are on Zayn’s shoulders, two pale white hands that aren’t really made out of love, or softness. Zayn’s trying to breathe and he’s looking up at Niall and he’s wondering how much of them their skin is keeping apart. This is what they do, how they do it – the lamps off and the shutters drawn but God, Zayn can still see the cutting cobalt of Niall’s eyes in the dark. That’s the thing about all of this, though; there are no covenants here, no natural order to keep things quiet. There’s only recklessness, and chaos. 

(Pain, too, if you’re listening quietly. But Zayn isn’t.) 

This is what their bodies are made for, what they were built to do. Skin falling away, bones rearranged, teeth sinking over bruises like ships – what else is there? The night is shaking like a gun in unsteady hands. Zayn doesn’t want to think about the bullet, or the blood, because those things are in the aftermath. Right now his tongue is pressing down on the trigger and Niall is leaning over him, and – fuck. He’s running out of beautiful ways of saying that he loves the way Niall’s body hitches like a comma when he breathes.

Where’s the story? There is no story. No sequence, no timeline, nothing. Zayn always crawls into Niall’s room just before the night is dead, talking about knives and asking for something cheap, something dirty. Niall lays him down, turns Zayn’s body into a language that only his hands can understand.

Zayn whispers, _take me._

He says, _I need this._

He says, _no – the girl doesn’t mean a thing to me anyway._

\--

The girl cries herself to sleep when Zayn doesn’t come home, but he’s distracted by Niall’s mouth and doesn’t hear her.

\--

Niall gives him what he wants, and now he’s stopped asking for anything in return.

It used to be this: Niall asking for one more hour, saying _take me home with you, I’ll do anything, we’ve got all night_ , and Zayn’s chest splitting open while he drove home alone.

A few months later, and Niall stops crying, stops screaming bloody murder every time Zayn leaves. A few months later, and Niall bends and dips into all of Zayn’s underwater caverns, finding the absences in space and the geometries of ruin. Broken things are fragile when they heal; Niall’s mouth leaves bruises in his skin without waiting for permission. A few months later, and Zayn still bites until he tastes blood, still wants Niall the way he always has; like the reckless collision in a car crash. That means all of this is getting easier, doesn’t it?

(But, no - he still can’t sleep at night.)

\--

Early Saturday – it’s two or three o’ clock in the morning. Zayn’s mouth is still bitter with the aftertaste of tequila or Niall, his body moving into the bedroom as quietly as he can manage without starting a war.

He’s clumsy with alcohol, though, and still manages to knock into something on his way to the bed, cursing through his nose and thinking, _fuck_ –

“Zayn?”

The sound stops him cold in his tracks. Takes him a moment or two to respond, words scrambling out of his throat like trapped animals. “You’re awake.”

“Zayn, where were you?”

He hears something shift quietly, and then a dim light flashes on, like the husk of a half-moon being split open inside the room.

“I –“ he pauses at the foot of the bed, confused. “Out? I’ve been out.”

She looks blurry with sleep, the sides of her body turning soft, unclear. “Out?” she repeats. “Where?”

The question seems unnecessary, loud and blaring in the semi-dark of the room. “Perrie.”

“You’ve been drinking.”

“No,” he says, then, “can we discuss this tomorrow, please?”

“You’ve been _out_ three nights this week,” Perrie accuses, voice smashing suddenly like glass. Zayn has to wince to avoid being cut by the shards. “When you come home, you’re always drunk and you don’t tell me anything. It’s been – _months,_ Zayn. I just want to know what’s happening to you.”

Zayn’s irritated because he just wants to climb into bed and sleep already. “Nothing’s been happening. I’m tired.”

“Are you seeing someone else?”

“No,” Zayn says, because he _isn’t_.

“Why are you doing this, Zayn?” she asks, and the tremolo in her voice sounds almost fragile, almost afraid.

“I said I’m tired,” Zayn takes a step backward, tries not to remember the feeling of Niall inside him, tries to ignore the fact that the sheer memory alone is enough to send colours shifting around the back of his eyes. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”  
  
“No, we won’t,” Perrie’s eyes are hazy in the dark, hurt, fading. “You’ll be gone before morning, God knows where, and you won’t come home till –“

“I’m not seeing anyone else,” Zayn repeats, his tongue heavy, and turns to leave the room. “And until you believe me, I’m going to sleep on the couch. _Goodnight_.”

\--

With Niall, it’s – it’s different.

“Funny,” Niall’s saying as he opens the door and sees Zayn standing there. “Almost forgot what you look like when the sun’s up.”

“Almost forgot what you look like at all,” Zayn responds as he steps into the dim flat. It’s been a whole fortnight since the last time he’s come round to see Niall.

Niall hums, “What took you so long?”

“Family,” Zayn drops his coat and kicks his shoes off onto the mysteriously stained welcome rug.

“Yours?”

Zayn pauses, looks up at Niall. He’s not wearing a shirt, just those baggy striped pajama pants that Zayn’s so used to seeing, and fluffy bedroom slippers. Then he says - “Not mine, no.”

“Ah,” there’s a quiet, subtle change of tone in Niall’s voice as he moves aside to let Zayn into the living room, but Zayn doesn’t miss it. God, he could never miss it.

“Niall,” Zayn begins, almost sighing, then stops himself, looks distractedly around instead. “I – I brought beer.”

“Okay,” Niall says. The yellowish kitchen light throws a shadow around his features, making the skin of his bare torso sallow, but _fuck_ if Zayn doesn’t want to press him down against the countertop right there. And he does, he does because all he ever thinks about with Niall is this – in the middle of the night, against the backseat, across the couch, or over a fucking sink – he _wants_ Niall, so desperately and dirtily that it makes it hard to do anything else.

Ten minutes later and Niall is on his back under Zayn, skin burning like a forest fire, shoulders and neck peppered with heavy, hungry bruises. Zayn’s hips are raked with countless crescent marks, where Niall’s fingers dug painfully into the flesh.

The whole mess – this _thing_ that they do, it always starts desperately, frantically, like a tornado. Two air masses coming into contact, one hot and raw underneath, one colder and stale on top. Zayn’s usually the burning one, holding insatiable flames in his mouth and turning everything to ashes. Niall’s cooler, more like a fading star than a supernova – and this is the hurricane they get in return for their sins.

When Niall comes, his body draws inward like a retreating wave, thighs tightening over Zayn’s waist and tugging down.

“Just _once_ ,” he gets out through gritted teeth as his fingernails scrape ancient runes into Zayn’s skin. “I want you to stay. I want you to come home to me, I want you to meet _my_ family, I want you –“

“Niall,” Zayn says, and Niall stops.

After a moment or two his hand reaches down, almost half-casually stroking to finish Zayn off, mouth pursed tight as if he hadn’t said anything. By the time Zayn finally lets out a choked noise and the dewy white ribbons spill out ungracefully over Niall’s thighs, the words are gone – whispers of _I want you to stay_ brushed away nonchalantly into the corners of the room.

\--

Maybe all of it just rests in the white spaces, in the shadows and the quiet. But. Zayn’s forgetting the difference between quiet and disquiet, and Niall has the loveliest voice.

\--

So the word for this isn’t love. It borders on the edge of love, like maybe it’s scratching at the walls with broken, bleeding nails; like maybe it’s screaming to be let in; maybe it’s trying really, really hard?

Niall reminds him of that, asks _how many more times until you figure this out_ and Zayn pretends not to hear. It’s easier when he’s drunk because he has an excuse to not make a choice. When he’s sober all he hears is _Niall or Perrie? Me or her?_ clamouring in his brain. Easier to pretend he doesn’t have to choose. Easier to have both at the same time. 

Easier to ignore that he wants to stay with Niall a little more each time.

\--

So what’s the moral of the story? I already told you, there is no story. The wedding band stays on, tarnished slightly with sin. Niall asks him for more every night, and Zayn faces Perrie with a mouth swimming in lies.

If there’s an excuse, there won’t be an apology. Zayn knows that now, and he never says sorry.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think please!


End file.
